


Just Friends

by pixiedurango



Series: Richard Armitage - Sensual Visual Prompts [1]
Category: Richard Armitage - Fandom, Sparkhouse
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Jealousy, Romantic Fluff, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 20:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17210306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiedurango/pseuds/pixiedurango
Summary: John Standring and Meg are neighbors and friends. When one day Carol Bolton appears from thin air, things are about to change. In one way or the other.





	Just Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This belongs to a collection of prompts I opened up for my followers on tumblr to choose a character portrayed by Richard Armitage and a collection of sensual/sexy gifs I put together merely for this purpose.  
> After the tumblr purge many of the stories got banned/deleted/hidden which I assume due to the nature of the gifs since the stories itself are rarely really explicit.  
> This is why I eventually decided to transfer my works to my Ao3 which I didn't do for the sheer number of Fandoms/Shows/Characters those stories belong to. My admiration for Richard Armitage let me write all those stories and I hope people will like it.  
> The gifs will be posted along with the stories so readers might decide whether I caught the spirit or not.

We’ve been on an early stroll to the Saturday farmers’ market together, John Standring and me. To each do our groceries.   
I’m only just hopping over to the next aisle to get a few things he’s not supposed to see now since I’m planning a little surprise for when he comes home tonight from his shift at Broadbents. Nothing fancy, just a nice little supper since it’s always nicer to dine with a friend rather than sitting all alone munching something from the can.  

I can tell, something’s off, the second I see her approach him.   
Gossip travels fast in such a little town like Hebden Bridge and so I exactly know who she must be. Even though I only live around here for little less than a year.  
  
Carol Bolton is a pretty thing with dark hair and desperate eyes and the way John’s face lights up when she’s approaching him now stings very hard and very deep. She has been away for what? Five years? And now just running up to him, hugging him for a hello makes good John Standring blush and glow.   
John and I have never spoken about that woman though, everything I know about her comes through the grapevine and I like nothing of what I hear. 

But after all it’s not that I have any claim on the lad. John’s my neighbor and we are _just friends_.  
That this stings so much is my fault and my fault alone. Allowing myself this ridiculous crush on him and not having the guts to  _tell_  him. 

I see them talk. Even debate of some sort.   
She talks, big gestures, he shyly talks back. Shakes his head. Repeatedly, but she keeps on talking. That girl’s intense and John has nothing to defend himself. Gets overrun, overwhelmed. But keeps on shaking his head. At some point he starts looking around with mild desperation on his face and I know he’s looking for me. To jump in to the rescue.   
  
I sigh and hide my secret groceries under a bunch of apples and stretch my back. Maybe all my nice plans are just running down the drain but I won’t let them just disappear now. Not without a fight.     
“There you are!” I plaster a smile onto my face and walk over to them.   
  
Carol’s brown eyes pierce me in an instant and I hear her mutter.  
“Think about it, John!” before she addresses me. “And who’re you?”

“That’s Meg. We’re neighbors.” John jumps in, obviously completely off balance and nervously fidgeting with his fingers. “Meg. This is Carol. Of Sparkhouse farm. We’re knowin’ each other like forever.”  
  
“Oh aye, _neighbor_ … is she…” Carol is less than amused to meet me, I can tell that only from looking at her.  
  
We don’t shake hands only nod at each other.   
From what I heard, Carol never had any claim on John but she acts like I’m a hostile intruder and just glances over to him in a manner that’s supposed to appear important and meaningful before she mutters: “I’ve got stuff to do. Seethee.” And it’s clear she only addresses John with her goodbye. 

When she’s gone, he shrugs at me. Still burning ear tips and rosy cheeks, and with an awkward grin.   
We turn to walk back to our lane where we own two neighboring houses.

“She proposed to me…”   
His words come almost in a stutter.

I feel like my whole life collapses on those four little words. Said by the man I so desperately love for almost a year now and who has no sodding clue what’s just happening to me. Because I don’t show and will probably never. I hide all my inner turmoil and only an eyebrow rises.  
“She did  _what_?”

“Aye… weird, innit? Haven’t seen for 5 years. But her da died. And she can’t hold’t farm. Needin’ money. She’s askin’ me to sell’t house. After my grandda passed it’s all me. It’s worth a bunch.” And he totally forgets to try to avoid his broad Yorkshire dialect as he usually does when talking to me.   
Probably the only person in the whole town but after he once had figured out how difficult it was for me to understand just anything he always tries. Not now. Which shows me just how much in turmoil he is. Forgetting to care about others is nothing John Standring usually does.   
  
“I know, John. We did the books together when your grandpa died.” It’s totally irrelevant to remind him on that now but it’s all that finds the way out of my mouth. Then I catch myself. It’s not about me, though, when I say. “You can’t possibly consider taking this… offer! She’s ripping you off!”

He kind of deflates. Hangs his head.  
“I know, Meg. But I’m flayed endin’ up alone. I’m dreamin’ of a wife. A family. I’m not one to ‘ave owt of it easily. You won’t understand, Meg. You’re beautiful. And clever. From’t big city. There’ll never be lack of blokes being into you and you can choose whomever you want. But me? None would wantin’ a lummox like me.”  
  
I want to slap him. Scream at him.  _'Me, John! Me! I want you! And you are not a lummox!’_  But I just blush and all I can do is to lamely punch him on the arm and mumble   
“Ahh, sod off!”  
I hate myself. For being shy and a coward for so long now.

“Said no.” He only dares a shy side glance at me under cast eyes. “But she’s beggin' me to think of it. I mean, she’ll be losin’ Sparkhouse…”

This is so much him. Forgetting himself about others, no matter how poorly they treat him.

Now it’s me to shrug.   
“I say it stinks. But obviously you have something that… binds you with that woman so I can’t argue. But it stinks.”

“She’s only askin’ me to think of it.” It comes with a pinch of stubbornness and obviously he has nothing more to reply but is lost in his thoughts and probably memories.

I can’t stop thinking about this madness but I leave him alone. Try to focus and only find my plans for later today to hold onto like on a lifeline.   
That silly surprise I have planned for so long now should have happened months ago. Not that he would think anything by it and I would rather die than ever confess. But it would have been much nicer to think back at it without this bloody incident. I will do it anyway. Of course I will. Because he is my friend and I want to do nice things for him.  
  
We hug when we reach my front door first and I wish him a good day and a calm shift at Broadbents before we part and an hour later I hear his front door clap and I know he’s off to the bus stop to get to work.

The afternoon is wasted with the vain attempts of reading and watching silly stuff on TV but nothing seems to be able to catch my attention longer than a few minutes before I find myself brooding over what has happened earlier.

So I’m finally pretty relieved when it’s about time to gather my supplies, sneak through our shared backyard and slip into the always open back door which leads into John's small, admittedly a little messy kitchen.   
  
I will not compete with Yorkshire specialties as he knows them from his childhood but I sure well know that John Standring will never say no to a well made Shepherd’s pie and some fine Eton Mess for dessert. And so I turn the radio on, making myself busy to have us a nice supper for when he comes home later.

By 9 the table is set nicely and the pie is waiting in the oven for him to arrive any minute.

But he doesn’t show up. At some point I switch off the radio, pour me a glass of wine of what should have been our dinner wine and slip onto his sofa.   
But TV can’t distract me. Of course, we had no appointment but in all the time we know each other he never has been late coming home after a shift.   
So why today?

Some weird kind of paranoia sets in. An accident? No, most likely not but for sure this dreaded woman is behind all that. Pestering him about her impossible proposal again.  
The possibility that he just only had decided to hang out at the local pub just like probably every other person (except myself) in Hebden Bridge won’t even occur to me over all the weird thoughts that rush through my anxious and, yes, my jealous mind.

I get up to refill my glass and giggle pointlessly over the fact that the bottle is half empty. I decide to take it with me to the sofa where I plan to continue in my broody waiting. I could go home but after being bloody shy I’m more stubborn than anything.   
And also I would never let a good supper go to waste. So I wait. And drink.

It’s way past midnight when the rattling keys in the front door make me jump from some restless slumber. It’s dark, only the flickering blue light of the muted TV ghosting across the walls when John steps into his house.

“Meg?”

I realize with some oddly comforting satisfaction that he knows at once that it must be me and I realize that I had myself wrapped in the old quilt that was a heirloom of his late grandmother and stretched out when I was falling asleep.  
  
“Here!” I mumble and with a few steps he’s next to the couch and kneels in front of it. In my sleepiness I don’t even realize that he’s tugging a few strands of stray hair behind my ear. “Made supper.”

John Standring chuckles and I can bet he’s blushing.  
“Why you’d be doin’ that?"

“Because I thought its nicer to not have dinner alone.” I declare with a little pout. “Was a surprise.”

He suddenly can’t meet my sleepy eyes anymore and his looks jump between his hands on his thighs and the silent TV screen.  
“Have been at’t Fleet. Carol crossin’ my path when I came down’t road and she was pullin’ me in.” He murmurs. “Kept tryin’…  talkin’ me into… the thing.”

“And?” I’m almost trembling from the sheer terror of what he might tell me.

John Standring only shakes his head. Silently and barely visible.  
“I stuck with no.”

“Why? I thought you like her.” I obviously  _want_  to hurt myself.

“Maybe. Back then I really fancied her but…” He shrugged, obviously not really knowing what to say to make himself understood. “It’s complicated. She won’t ever be likin’ me the way it should be. I’d be alone, even when with her. That might be worse than bein’  _really_ on my own.”

I finally realize that he is holding my hand. The first impulse is to flinch. Because it’s coming totally out of the blue and I’m too tipsy and even more sleepy to grasp anything. But then… it’s something I so desperately have wished for the good part of the last year.

“John…” It’s everything. Surprise, question, confirmation but he gently cuts me, obviously gathering all the courage he can summon.

“It’s late. I don’t want you to go, even if it’s only next door.” His forehead rests against mine suddenly and all I can do is emitting an approving little noise. Forgotten is the missed supper, postponed the talk about what has changed all in a sudden.

John Standring lifts me bridal style in his arms, while I'm still wrapped into the quilt and he carries me upstairs. Makes no effort to undress either of us. Just lets me down onto the massive old fashioned bed he surely has taken from his grandparents. It costs him all the boldness he finds within to brush a soft kiss on the top of my head.  
“Be back in a minute. Gunna shut down’t lights and’t kitchen. Don’t you run.”

I chuckle and really it takes barely a minute and he is back. Carefully slipping under the duvet, trying not to invade my space.  
“Never had someone around… like… in’t same bed.” He mumbles, trying to get comfy with himself and the new situation.  
  
Now this makes me giggle over how cute he is in all his concerned awkwardness.   
“I won’t bite.” I assure him, turning my head a little, finding him tensed and nervous. Reaching out for his hand and squeezing it. I won’t go and tease him that I would in fact bite if he’d ask me for because I understand it’s just too much for him to stomach right now.  
But what I do is gently pulling his arm over so he ends up spooning me. Wrapped under his arm. It’s the most innocent thing but feels so impossibly safe and right.

“John?” I say, already half back to sleep and I hear him murmur in my ear.  
  
“Aye?”  
  
“Don’t you fear being alone. You won’t be. Never.”


End file.
